


Wounded

by ImpOfPerversity



Series: Devastation-verse [16]
Category: Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-25
Updated: 2004-09-25
Packaged: 2018-10-21 07:01:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10680150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpOfPerversity/pseuds/ImpOfPerversity





	Wounded

Jack Shaftoe's hot, wet, _quick_ tongue moved like a perverse new brand over the jagged tear on Jack's right hand, and it made him shiver: worse, it made him remember places half a world away (and Jack Sparrow, though he had not yet circumnavigated the apple-round earth, had talked with men who'd followed in the wake of all those old Spanish navigators, and he'd listened as they told him of the perils of the inaptly-named Pacific — the dead calms, the great winds, the long weeks without change and the sheer ship-swallowing immensity of it — and he knew that the _Black Pearl_ was equal to the voyage, should he, her captain, see point or purpose to it: but, more, he knew that the world was round like one of those fancy cartographers' globes, all painted and lettered and elaborately coloured, and some day he'd prick out all his travels and read his own adventuresome life, all retrospective, in the shape they made) and that long-ago day when, exploring (without invitation) the attics of a struggling import-export company three streets back from the eastern quay of Singapore, he'd disturbed some others — some other _pirates_ , to be perfectly accurate, for no shipping company could hold its creditors at bay for long without at least a piratical _streak_ — at the same business; and those men (there had been three of them, as he recalled) had come at him with swords snicking from their scabbards, but otherwise silent so's not to disturb the slumbering guardian at the foot of the stairs, for 'twould've been unseemly to rouse him now that the incursion was near done: Jack had thought of calling to him for help, but very swiftly laid this notion aside, for that way he'd at best have exchanged the peril of three swords for the slower unpleasantness of the shipping company's insistence upon Justice, and at worst he'd have implicated, and injured, an innocent bystander (never mind that the watchman's _business_ was to prevent this sort of invasion) in a fight that wasn't his: so Jack had sidestepped, knocked the first man on the head with the nearest heavy object (an ugly squatting idol made of brass) that came to hand; run the second man, a tall skinny Hindoo, through with his blade, and turned to see the third of 'em coming right at him, sword up and extended before him like a gentleman's rapier, though for sure he was no gentleman, all scarred and scowling like that; Jack'd done the only thing he could, which was to reach out and grab the blade before it made contact in short order with his shirt, then skin, then vitals; the pain had shocked a curse from him, and he'd pulled his hand back swiftly, cradling the gushing scarlet wound; and haply this'd left his assailant unbalanced, and Jack (blinking back tears from the pain and the sheer _danger_ of it all) had broken his nose, disarmed him, and kicked him in several anatomically sensitive areas — then scarpered, hand shoved into the top of his breeches so as not to leave behind him a bright trail of blood, as noises below indicated that the watchman had finally, belatedly, woken from whatever pleasant and peaceful dream he'd enjoyed meanwhile: all of which Jack Sparrow, now curled in his own broad bunk on his beloved _Black Pearl_ next to one of the most startlingly direct men he'd ever met, recounted to Jack Shaftoe, albeit with a rather more Heroic cast to it; and Shaftoe chuckled and said, "What, and you came away with nothing to show for your troubles but a mangled hand?", which was all very well, but Shaftoe's agile, lively tongue — Jack could not help but think of it as animalistically alive, separate from (although very much attached to) his bedmate, having a life of its own and certain distinct aims, volitions et cetera — was tracing every ridge and knot and bump left so long ago by the Hindoo's curved, and not especially well-cared-for, blade, and Jack Sparrow found himself quite distracted from contemplation of that long-ago memory by the way that Jack Shaftoe's tongue, reaching the terminus of the scar, skipped straight down to press against the hollow at the base of his wrist, where the blue vein showed brightest; he could not help but think of that tongue performing a similar office on other veins in more intimate parts of his body; and this line of thinking inevitably made Jack's cock twitch and rise, which did not go unnoticed by Shaftoe, who slid his other hand over Jack's sticky hip and twisted himself firmly closer, and breathed their shared smell out over Jack's forearm (pausing to lick teasingly, eyes fixed on Jack's, at the shivery silvery branding-scar above the blue-inked tattoo) and said, "So you sliced up your hand; what then?" and Jack, who had to cast around like a blind man for the remains of his tale, said, "My captain — for this was before I e'er saw the _Black Pearl_ — took me off to the nearest brothel to have the thing stitched, and they gave me opium for the pain, and the madame — ooh, Jack, you should've seen her, ancient as a dragon's grandmother but still painted and jewelled like a temple icon — sat with me that night when I took a fever, and told me that I'd — Jack, _Jack_ , don't stop," he interrupted himself, breathlessly, and Jack Shaftoe lifted his mouth just far enough from Jack's nipple to murmur, "I won't if you don't," and so Jack, mustering every splintering fragment of mental acumen at his disposal, told of how the dragon's grandmother had described the battle between Jack's soul (which had fought to live on in this imperfect world) and his fate; "or perhaps it was the gods, or demons, or — oh! — that Imp of yours; anyway, whatever it was that wanted me, though I don't know _why_ any such being would want to steal me away —" at which point Shaftoe, tongue probing Jack's navel in a way that made Jack remember the taste of women, muttered, " _I'd_ steal you away: but, wait, wasn't it t'other way about?" and Jack — wordless at the feel of Shaftoe's sure hand on his cock, and Shaftoe blowing warmly on his wet belly, grinning so wide that Jack could see the corners of his mouth stretching suggestively — finally gasped out, "and she told me I'd cut myself free of my fate," expecting Jack Shaftoe to be impressed; but Shaftoe raised his wet red burning mouth, tantalisingly close to where his hand grasped Jack's cock, and scoffed at him; "But surely you never subscribed to that claptrap about preordination that they used to noise around when I was a lad; now, _I'd_ never've got _anywhere_ if I hadn't made my own fate, and you're no less free than I," and Jack grinned at him and said, "Well, I am _now_ : who knows what I'll do?": at which Shaftoe's tongue crept out and pushed firmly and wickedly against Jack's aching cock, and then vanished again as Jack Shaftoe said, mockingly, "I reckon I can foresee it."


End file.
